


the kids aren't alright

by heartunsettledsoul



Series: Forgotten Moments [20]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Canon, Canon Compliant, Multi POV, and all these kids need therapy, post-ep, this town is a goddamn mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 15:42:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16856785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartunsettledsoul/pseuds/heartunsettledsoul
Summary: these poor, goddamn kids just cannot catch a breakor, everyone is a mess post 3x06; a series of multi-POV vignettes





	the kids aren't alright

**_Jughead_ **

 

“You know, Arch,” he’d said, after listening to this harebrained scheme while they ate cold fries from Pop’s in the bunker after dark. “This may be your stupidest idea yet.” 

 

The frown Archie gave him was so petulant, so reminiscent of their sandbox days, that Jughead had felt himself yearning for those simpler times. They were well past those now. 

 

“ _ But,  _ it may be just stupid enough to work.” 

 

Hours later, feet straddling train tracks and squinting through the sun as he watches his best friend break his own heart via payphone, Jughead isn’t sure whether that sentiment had been more for Archie or for himself. 

 

For himself, he admits bitterly. He’s scared shitless. Whatever game-fueled high he had been on dissipated the moment he saw the mysterious symbol carved into Joaquin’s forehead. Something bigger than him, bigger than all of them, is at play and for the first time since he donned his proverbial deerstalker hat all those months ago, Jughead isn’t sure if he can figure it out. Not unscathed anyway, not without someone he loves getting hurt.

 

Once upon a time, his solution for not wanting his loved ones hurt—loved  _ one _ , because really, it always has and always will be just about Betty for him—was to push away. He’d tried that and while its original intent was successful, Jughead had underestimate how much the separation itself had been the cause of pain for him and Betty. 

 

He doesn’t ever want to see the look on her face from that night at the Wyrm ever again, not it he can help it. 

 

It’s why he called her the night he went to face Penny and the Ghoulies, why he’d tried calling her last night when he and Archie made a game plan to skip town. It’s selfish and more than a little childish, but he knows telling Betty in person that he’s about to do something idiotic and dangerous means having to watch her eyes crinkle in confusion before free-falling into worry. 

 

So much for being a fearless leader if he’s too much of a coward to tell his own girlfriend something. 

 

They’re _supposed_ to be getting better at this; they’re getting there, Jughead thinks. He hopes. 

 

But it’s not exactly like he’s helping the cause by going full  _ Stand By Me  _ to help his escaped-convict best friend flee the state. 

 

Semantics.  

 

It makes him nauseous to watch Archie do the same thing to Veronica that Jughead had done to Betty mere months before. He likes to the think maybe he and Betty are the more solid relationship, the more mature ones who have been to hell and back and are, mercifully, still intact; they survived their hardships and Jughead isn’t confident that those two will have the same result. 

 

His stomach still turns at the anguish on Archie’s face and realizes that, regardless of maturity or stability, being separated from someone you love hurts. He’s happy to be here for Archie in the way he wouldn’t let Archie, or anybody for that matter, be there for him when he couldn’t be with Betty. And while Veronica isn’t his favorite person on the planet, Jughead knows she must be heartbroken too. She’ll have Betty at least, he asserts. Betty is the best person to have in your corner for these kinds of situations.

 

Another clench of nausea rocks him at the thought of the undetermined amount of time he’ll be away from Betty. With hours gone by and no returned message, Jughead feels worse and worse about not saying goodbye in person. He’d thought it was the right thing at the time but, judging by her silence, he’s royally screwed up. And they’re much too far along to turn back, not without risking Archie’s recapture. 

 

“God damn it,” he mutters. He kicks a pebble with the toe of his boot and it skitters across the tracks. 

 

Archie still appears to be rationalizing with Veronica, so Jughead takes the opportunity to expand his pacing circles in search of one more cell service bar. 

 

He finds it about two hundred yards from the roadside shack and is grateful he has relative privacy with which to grovel. 

 

There’s exactly one half of a ring before he’s sent straight to Betty’s chipper, “Hi! This is Betty Cooper! I can’t come to the phone right now,” and he frowns. Weird, he thinks, but not unexpected. He did run off in the middle of the night, he does deserve to be in the doghouse. 

 

“Hey, Betts, it’s me. I, uh, I assume you got my message last night and that’s why you’re not picking up and I get it. I’m sorry. This is dumb in general and even dumber to have not come to see you first. I think I was afraid you’d talk me out of it, or I’d take one look at you and realize I didn’t want to be that far from you ever again. I messed up, big time. But Arch needs me and I owe him this much. And I’ll owe you even more when I’m home, but I have total faith you’ve got things down on lock in our crazy town. I love you, Betty. Don’t ever forget that.” He hangs up to see Archie coming toward him, swiping at tears on his cheeks. 

 

Jughead is almost certain he’s wearing the exact same expression on his own face. 

 

With the last crappy bar of cell service, he sends a heart emoji to Betty, knowing the gesture will mean something since he abhors the damn things but she loves them.  **_You do your thing, Nancy Drew. I’ll be back sooner than you know it. I love you._ **

 

The message sends and with one step to the left, all the bars of service disappear.

 

* * *

 

**_Sweet Pea_ **

 

He’s still not so sure how he feels about Cheryl Blossom’s sudden, and intense, involvement in their lives—in  _ his  _ life. She is loud and colorful and walks into every room like she owns it, and will not pout but demand your attention if you deign to act like she does not own said room. 

 

And because she’s a Blossom, she theoretically _could_ own every single room they step foot in. 

 

Even so, Toni seems happy. Despite Sweet Pea’s revolting reality of somehow  _ always  _ encountering them with their tongues down each other’s throat. 

 

But, right now, his ambiguity toward Cheryl is outweighed by his concern for Josie. 

 

True to her word, Josie dropped him like a hot potato the moment school started again. He likes her even more for it, if he’s being honest with himself. She’ll still meet his eye in the halls and smile coyly at him from across the cafeteria, but their not-so-clandestine makeout sessions up against his bike in the dark corners of the Wyrm’s parking lot are no more. 

 

While he may desperately miss the feeling of his hands spanning across her tiny waist while she sucked hickeys over his Serpent tat, Sweet Pea also missed talking with her. It had all started when they both were bored and in dire need of getting some. They'd wound up splitting an order of cheese fries at Pop’s after Veronica blanched in apology and said she mixed up the supply delivery days and that was the last of the nacho cheese. 

 

But after an entire summer of hooking up, Sweet Pea had come to enjoy the sparkly, faraway look in Josie’s eyes when she talked about signing a record deal and getting the hell out of Riverdale, or how fidgeted with her bracelets when deep in thought. They bonded over a love of fake cheese, and their shitty dads and split-up parents, even though their circumstances were worlds apart. After he smoked her at pool early on in the summer and celebrated a bit too obnoxiously, she gave him the cold shoulder until he promised to teach her how to sink shots—on the condition that she teach him some basics on the piano. Whatever their differences, the two of them got along very well.

 

And god  _ damn _ was the sex amazing. 

 

He fell a little too hard for a situation they both agreed was short-term, and he kind of hates himself for it. Sweet Pea refuses to be a pining idiot like Jones was last year.  

 

Yet here he is, texting Cheryl fucking Blossom and asking if she’s heard from Josie since she’d been carried out on an EMS stretcher in homeroom that morning. The experience of watching her, the girl he spent so much time with, start convulsing and hit the floor was horrifying. He vaguely remembers Jones muttering something to Toni about his blondie having a seizure, too. 

 

Sweet Pea knows that shit isn’t contagious, but the idea that  _ seizures  _ of all things are going around is unsettling. 

 

**_Well given that your texting fingers don't appear to be broken, Lurch, I'm not sure why you are asking me instead of the beautiful siren herself,_ ** Cheryl responds. 

 

He's only just hit send on  **_Oh fuck off, you succubus_ ** when she follows up.

 

**_Hospital isn't allowing non family visitors, so I'm not really sure. Kevin and the former-mayor-now-ace-attorney seem perturbed, so I'm still nervous._ **

 

The pit of dread in Sweet Pea's stomach only grows larger.  ****

 

Despite hating himself more than a little for be as whipped for a Northsider as  _ Jughead _ , Sweet Pea only wants good things for Josie. He wants her to be okay. There's so much bullshit in this town and someone like her deserves to get out in one piece. 

 

* * *

 

 

**_Fangs_ **

 

About twelve seconds after he and Sweets squint, see  _ something  _ in that ridiculous lounge-throne only Cheryl uses, and realize what it is, Fangs turns around to vomit up his lunch. It’s a shame, too, because they splurged on all the good shit at Pop’s. 

 

Joaquin. 

 

Just...  _ Shit.  _

 

A lot of time had passed since Joaquin originally skipped town and Fangs was only just getting used to the idea of him back in their world—though he was so high on morphine from his bullet wound that Fangs thought he was hallucinating when he first saw those blue eyes in his hospital room. 

 

Though still just as young as most of them, Joaquin always carried an air of being much older than he was, and Fangs spent a lot of time looking up to him. Joaquin was a lot of his firsts; first out guy he met, first punch when running the gauntlet, first blowjob, first person to suggest that, “You know, kid, maybe you just like both teams, that’s cool.” And now: first body.  

 

He throws up again. After that, there’s no use trying to stop the tears from flowing. 

 

After a few moments, Sweet Pea claps him lightly on the shoulder. “Just let it out, man. I’m sorry. I know he was your friend.” 

 

By the time Jughead shows up, Fangs almost has himself together. He can tell that Sweets is on a razor’s edge, just looking for a direction with which to put his full energy and fury. For him, it’s all territorial and Serpent pride bullshit. 

 

Fangs loves his best friend, but it both worries and pisses him off that he’s reacting this way. 

 

They  _ knew  _ him. This is too real now. 

 

He catches the split second where Jughead has to fight back his emotions and somehow that makes him feel better. Until they’re alone again, with nothing to do but figure out what to do with the body.

 

With him. 

 

Fangs wretches, but there’s nothing left in his stomach. 

 

* * *

 

 

**_Archie_ **

 

Archie Andrews knows he’s always been an indecisive kid; the easy place to lay the blame would be on his parents splitting up during his formative years and the constant echo in his head of,  _ but even if Mom doesn’t love Dad anymore, doesn’t she love me enough to stay here? Why do I have to choose who I want to stay with? Why isn’t “both” an option?  _

 

But plenty of parents get divorced and plenty of kids turn out to be perfectly normal adolescents, capable of sticking to their guns for more than ninety seconds at a time. 

 

And, really, Archie had trouble choosing long before the nice lady in court asked him which parent he wanted to live wit. 

 

Would it be the monkey bars or the swings at recess; chocolate shake or vanilla for his dessert at Pop’s; spend more time with Betty or with Jughead after school—this, thankfully, was the one instance where “both” was an option; strings or brass instruments in middle school music class; football or baseball; then football or music; Betty the friend or Betty as more than a friend; Veronica or… 

 

No, deep within him, Archie knew from the moment Veronica walked into Pop’s that something about her was different. Something about her made  _ him  _ different. 

 

It was always going to be Veronica, Archie decided. 

 

Until Veronica’s father had swooped in and tried to undo the only decision Archie had ever been certain of in his young life. 

 

The road getting here, to this barely-functioning payphone on a dirt road with Jughead—loyal, always curious, spit pact to prove their undying friendship on the playground Jughead—was rough and painful, but it’s still the same end result. 

 

Veronica matters to him, more than anything. 

 

What was it his mom said to him, at age six, when he’d spent two painstaking weeks feeding a baby robin from an eyedropper after he found it abandoned in their backyard? Something about letting something you love leave. 

 

_ “Archie, honey,” Mary crouches to meet her son’s tear-filled eyes. “You did such a good job taking care of this little guy until his wings got strong, but you can’t keep him inside forever. He’s supposed to be out flying with all his birdie friends.”  _

 

_ “But I want to keep him,” Archie sobs. “I  _ love  _ him!”  _

 

_ “I know, honey. But if you love something, you have to set it free. He’ll come back if it’s meant to be. You never know, maybe he’ll build a nest in our yard next summer.”  _

 

She’s just so important to him and he loves her so much. 

 

It’s for her own good, Archie reminds himself as he hangs up the payphone. He has to set her free. 

 

* * *

 

 

**_Reggie_ **

 

Something’s pissed off his dad. He knows it the second the sound of the front door slamming cuts through the loud gunfire of his zombie apocalypse videogame. 

 

_ Fuck.  _

 

Usually an angry Marty Mantle just means a screaming match, maybe a tossed book or water bottle or whatever else is within reach. Reggie knows how to manage that; he takes it like a man and lets his father’s bellowing wash over him with no reaction until he has to duck from a flying object. 

 

But ever since Reggie brought that stupid, nerdy-ass game Betty wouldn’t shut up about, his dad has been ...unpredictable. 

 

He’s been shoved and grabbed before, and at most walked away with finger-shaped bruises on his upper arm. It’s not great, but he knows it could be worse. At least he’s not Betty, at least his dad’s never  _ killed anyone.  _ Let alone tried to kill  _ him.  _

 

Reggie regretted asking the moment he finished saying “and Gargoyles,” and saw the look of unadulterated anger in his dad’s eyes. 

 

He figured the cordless house phone, resting on the side table next to his dad, was going to be the weapon of choice. He was not expecting the fist. Especially not to his face. 

 

On screen, his character is being devoured by limbless, rotting corpses. With the telltale stomping of dress shoes on the front stairs and the knowledge that now, apparently, all bets are off, Reggie can’t help but think his avatar got the preferable ending.

 

* * *

 

**_Veronica_ **

 

Vaguely, like she’s hearing it through radio static, she can tell that Kevin is trying to talk to her, ask what’s happened, if everything’s okay. 

 

It’s _not_ , she wants to scream. She wants to rip the rainbow of decorations down from the walls, up end the bar tables she so painstakingly picked out from the catalogue, throw every single tea light across the room until the velvet curtains catch fire. 

 

Nothing about this is okay and Veronica is filled with fury. 

 

Instead it just comes out as a whimper. 

 

All she wants in this moment is a hug. Not one from Kevin, though his biceps are an impressive substitute, but a hug from the very man who just tore her entire being into pieces and handed them back to her on a platter. 

 

She wants Archie to come walking through the door and wrap her in such a tight hug that she forgets every bad thing about the last year; Mr. Andrew’s blood on Archie’s shirt, the ring of the gunshot when she fired into the night’s sky, the broken look on Betty’s face when she realized Veronica lied to her, the Shadow Lake boys’ guns aimed at her back, the echo of Minetta’s words in Riverdale High’s gym as he arrested Archie for murder, the crack of a guard’s baton against Archie and the other juvie kids during the wrecked game, every evil grin on her father’s face—she wants it all to disappear.

 

It was supposed to just be the two of them, that’s all she wants.   

 

Veronica Cecilia Lodge has cried a lot in her life, she’s an emotional person. She’s cried a lot just since moving to Riverdale and meeting Archie. 

 

This one feels different, though. Like something inside of her became unhinged with the first sob. Like she’s not sure if the sobs will ever stop. 

 

“It’s—not—fair,” she wails to Kevin, gasping for breath between words, each one raising in pitch until she’s verging on hysteria. “He can’t—can’t—just— _ do that _ .”

 

“I know, V, I know.” Kevin, to his credit, is doing a number of things that would be soothing to someone in distress; she’s fully in his embrace, with one hand stroking her hair, he’s almost rocking her as he holds her and whispers in reassuring tones. 

 

He’s so good at this and Veronica briefly wonders if it’s because he’s consoled so many times before, or if he’s been consoled so much that he knows what works. 

 

It could be a combination of the two. This is Riverdale, after all. 

 

“Why don’t we get you home, huh?” he offers gently. “Take a fancy bath, drink some expensive wine your parents paid for, watch trashy tv?”

 

Any other night, that would be Veronica’s dream. To indulge in all her silly pleasures with her best friends at her side. Not right now, though. No amount of Real Housewives or luxury bath bombs or hugs from Betty and Kevin are going to salve this wound. Not even a case of Cristal or Betty Cooper’s sheer force of will would fix this. 

 

Because this isn’t a breakup, this feels wildly different from the time she and Archie were previously—briefly—apart. It’s complete abandonment. It’s  _ goodbye.  _

 

Its wake is catastrophic. 

 

To top it off, the thought of going home, of seeing her father’s smug face and her mother’s passive obedience, makes her ill. If this is real, if Archie’s really doing this, then Hiram Lodge has won. Every single thing Veronica has fought for over the last few months, every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears—it’s all for nothing if her father ends up with everything he wanted in the first place.  

 

And nothing is uglier or more repulsive than a self-aggrandizing man realizing that he’s gotten his way.   

 

* * *

 

 

**_Polly_ **

 

Everything about the Farm is so beautiful, Polly thinks. The trees are greener, the air crisper, even the twins’ eyes seem to shine brighter when they’re here. 

 

It’s so nice to finally feel at peace. It’s something she didn’t ever think she’d get, not after losing Jason. 

 

She’s happy when her mother calls to say she’ll be staying at the Farm for a while. Polly isn’t entirely sure what’s going on at home in Riverdale, but if it means her mother and sister are coming to soak in everything the Farm and Edgar have to offer in person, then so be it. 

 

“Oh no, darling,” Alice tells her. “Betty won’t be coming with me.” 

 

The shoulder that isn’t bracing Juniper sags in disappointment. But she supposes that’s to be expected. Betty has always wanted to forge her own path, and she hasn’t been receptive to Polly’s new way of life. 

 

Even so, she worries for her baby sister. “Mom, if things are as dangerous as you say, surely Betty shouldn’t be alone in the house.” Though, alone in that house is probably still safer than the times any of them were in the house with Dad. 

 

Polly swallows that thought. She’ll need to discuss that evasion with Edgar later, but she’s more preoccupied with Betty’s safety. 

 

“No, no, she’s not at the house anymore.” There it is. That delicate shift in tone. The dancing around the truth. It’s the Alice Cooper speciality. Polly may be an exhausted new mother and a free-loving Farmie now, but she still has her shrewdness leftover from months of sneaking out of the house to meet Jason. 

 

The sudden memory of what happened when she got caught for all that sneaking around hits her like a ton of bricks. 

 

“Mom. Where’s Betty?” 

 

The curt “Somewhere safe” she receives in return is drowned out by Dagwood’s cries in his crib across the room. Sick with nausea, Polly wishes she could join in his screaming. 

 

* * *

 

 

**_Betty_ **

 

Betty never thought she’d miss the color pink so much. 

 

When she was eight and picked out the bubblegum pink paint for her bedroom walls, she’d still been enamored with the color. In the years that followed, full of Alice’s reprimands for getting too dirty while playing with Jug and Archie and of, “Act like a lady, Elizabeth” or, “Don’t wear that color, it’s unflattering. Put on that pink sweater I bought you,” Betty’s love for pink faded somewhat. 

 

Not so much than she eliminated it entirely; it was, after all, her favorite before her mother starting shoving everything pink, pristine, and ladylike down her throat. She just learned to love more than pink, learned to only hate it when it defined her in Alice’s eyes, in everyone else’s. When Betty  _ chooses  _ it, like she chooses her ponytail and her small, sparkly earrings, pink makes her feel powerful. 

 

On any given day, Betty has complicated feelings toward the color. But here, in the drab gray of her room at the Sisters of Quiet Mercy, staring at her reflection in the dirty mirror, Betty misses pink fiercely. 

 

She misses her pink lipstick and the flush of pink across her chest when Jughead kisses her, telling her how beautiful she is, the pink of her bedroom—the only space still safe to her in that house of horrors—and the pink of her favorite bra that is also Jughead's favorite, not for the color, but for its oh-so-convenient front clasp. 

 

Betty doesn’t recognize herself in the mirror. They’d taken her clothes, replaced them with this stiff dress and itchy cardigan, and ripped the hair tie and bobby pins from her head.  _ Dangerous,  _ they’d told her. She fails to see how a stretched hair elastic could be weaponized or used to hang herself, but they were at least right about the bobby pins. Those had been her one saving grace, her trusty Nancy Drew-approved tool that could help her escape. 

 

And now she has nothing. 

 

The place is desolate and terrifying. It’s no wonder Polly fled and found solace in crazed hippies, or that Cheryl had a complete personality switch after her time there. It could break a person, staying here. 

 

Betty Cooper may bend, but she does. Not.  _ Fucking.  _ Break. 

 

Not when Alice Cooper tries to control her, not when her father stalks her, not when her boyfriend’s gang friends think she’s just a pretty little Northsider blonde, not when more and more killers are loose in this town. 

 

And certainly not when these nuns are trying to convince her she’s weak and sick in the head and undeserving of love. 

 

Maybe a year ago she may have believed them. But not anymore. 

 

Not since Betty’s gained her own kind of family, the one that loves her for who she is, flaws and all. A family of friends and loved ones that values her for her investigative prowess, her artfully done ponytail, her drive for the truth, her everything. A boyfriend who makes her feel like she’s the smartest and prettiest one in the room, no matter what. A team of friends who has her back now, because of the work she did to earn the symbol  _ on  _ her back. 

 

Maybe she misses the pink and mourns the absence of her bobby pins. 

 

But she’s Betty Cooper, so maybe that doesn’t matter.

 

* * *

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I experimented with working in other POVs and in fleshing out our oft-neglected minor characters, and I'm quite nervous to share. pretty, pretty please leave a comment if you have the time.


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